


I'll give you a light (when your hands tremble)

by Wineabout



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death, Discussion of Gun Violence, General mental heatlh warning because these men are all pretty hecked up, Guns, Hunter team Peter and Chris, M/M, Panic Attacks, Peter kills people, Please let me know if I need to tag something I'm new to this, Show level violence, Stiles chooses his work but is in a vulnerable position, Strong Language, because hunters have guns: both supernatural and non, bed sharing, discussion of dub-con, discussion of sex work, oooh boy, prior to start of fic though, slowbuild, stiles is 19, street kid Stiles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2020-06-22 17:03:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 14,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19674487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wineabout/pseuds/Wineabout
Summary: He couldn’t pinpoint when they’d taken to living like drifters. They both owned property. They both had more money than they needed. Just seemed like the need to return home stopped itching after the second time they'd circled back to Beacon Hills. There was nothing left there anyways, just ash and lies and more blood soaked into his own backyard than Chris wanted to think about.





	1. Chapter 1

Chris only ever caught Peter smoking at truck stops. A leather cut shoulder leaned up against the Ford Expedition they bought together. Peter was flicking ash on the wet gravel lot and smirking at the dirty look Chris shot his way. 

It was as close to therapy as the wolf would get so he never argues too hard against it; just dodges the puff of smoke aimed at him.

“Second-hand smoke kills,” Chris reminds, like a reflex before he shoulders Peter away from the open side door so he can dig out his duffel and change his shirt. Half of his complaint was for the sake of it, but he did hate the smell sinking into the interior when Peter left the doors open.

The damp air was chilling his bare chest when he felt Peter slither up against him, cig hanging down by his side and mouth tasting like hot death when he comes close enough to kiss at Chris’s frowning mouth. Claws trace the nape of his neck. 

“Not before I do,” Peter was grinning against his temple. The words buzz against his skin and Chris can’t blame the weather for the shiver that starts in his shoulders. Peter smirks and lets go of his squeeze on denim gripped hip as he twists his heel over the half burnt cigarette. He never let them burn down near the filter. 

Peter’s body is a fluid line as he pushes away from Chris and the SUV to take his turn in the bathroom. Smirk not hidden and his eyes flashing, a cold blue, over the rest of the lot. The sleeping semi at the other end catches his attention for a moment, Peter tips his head slightly before he keeps on walking toward the scraggy looking rest stop. 

“Use the second stall,” Chris calls while he fixes his cotton tee shirt down against his belly and grabs a heavy plaid to layer over it. The illusion of being fresh washed was the best they could do most days.

He couldn’t pinpoint when they’d taken to living like drifters. They both owned property. They both had more money than they needed. Just seemed like the need to return home stopped itching after the second time they’d circled back to Beacon Hills. There was nothing left there anyways, just ash and lies and more blood soaked into his own backyard than Chris wanted to think about.

However it happened, they were both happier like this. Even if happy never seemed quite the right word for it. 

Chris tips his head back to debate the angle of the waning moon through the clouds as he suppresses a yawn into his wrist and slumps heavier against the cold metal of the door. His trigger finger aches in the Washington moisture, he flexes it out and massages his second knuckle with his opposite thumb and index. 

A scream shatters the streetlight humming silence. It’s low and wet: panicked. A middle aged man if Chris had to wager on the tone and warble. 

The noise cuts off as abruptly as it had begun and the tense quiet only settles for a strained breath before the muffled ding of Christopher’s cell phone makes him lurch. The screen seems blinding when he looks at it. 

**_Get in the car._ **

Peter was never one for clarity when he could avoid it. Enjoyed leaving Chris in the dark, enjoyed that Chris always listened to his vague insistence. The wind ruffles his hair and shirt collar as Chris turns to scan the singular shabby building. Broken vending machines flicker back at him. It seems ominous now. 

At least he’d had his chance to scrub off in the sink before Peter kicked up shit.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See notes at the end if you need a brief outline of what this chapter contains. If I miss anything important please let me know. Keep yourselves safe, y'all. 
> 
> I don't have an editor so if you spot some glaring errors I'd appreciate the heads up!

The night feels colder than February when Chris turns to get out of it and into the relative warmth of the driver’s seat. His phone stays quiet where he rests it on the dash. 

It’s been a few minutes already and the hunter turns a glance over to the half illuminated shitter to try and catch some kind of clue about what’s happening -- not that he didn’t have a strong inclination already. Men don’t scream like that over the state of a toilet. Even these ones.

Peter probably wants to drive. He liked playing at a getaway man but Chris doesn't have the inner ear to tolerate that kind of erratic speeding anymore so he jostles the keys in the ignition and turns the engine back over. His seat whirs mechanically and slides forward as Chris jabs a finger over the button on the side. There’s only half an inch of height between them but Peter has longer legs. Not so much longer that he absolutely needs to move the seat, but Chris does anyway because Peter finds it irritating. It’s the little things that keep them bickering.

After another full minute of waiting, heavy silence creeps into the cab, insulated from the small noises of the empty rest stop. He can’t hear the cars on the highway they’re adjacent to and Chris starts to feel like he’s breathing too loud. Not a new feeling, he always gets a little out of body after 2am. 

When the quiet gets itchy, three inhales later, he picks his phone back up to get something playing through the speakers of the car. His thumb smears over the top playlist and his neck tips back, skull thudding where it meets head rest. The first note of music is a relief though it's not a familiar song. Chris has to blink at the over bright screen of his phone to identify it as Vance Joy and, subsequently, as something Peter’s slipped into their shared playlist. He tries to pay attention to what Peter might like about it but his focus is too split.

With his head tipped toward the men’s side of the shanty concrete hut Chris sees Peter the moment he cuts into the night. The wolf always makes an imposing image and if the flickering yellow light on the wall isn’t entirely deceitful, he’s managed to add a spattering of blood to the look. The red on pastel blue is almost artful, sprayed across Peter's nipple line up to the collar with more angled to the left than the right.

Peter paints a deadly picture that’s so familiar it isn’t even startling anymore. 

The startling comes a breath later when, after Peter, comes some lanky jumble of limbs obscured by oversized material. The hunter can’t even get a good look because Peter drags the stumbling body out of the light too fast. They move quick and clumsy across the crumbling parking lot.

“What the fuck,” Chris breathes and rests his forehead down on the steering wheel just long enough feel the cold of the leather on his pinched brow. This was a strong deviation from their usual. 

A click, followed by the soft swoosh of the back side door opening forces Chris to twist in his seat and stare. There's an overgrown buzz cut peeking out from a turned up hood in a tangle of stained sweater being shoved into the bucket seat, cursing loud enough to drown out the music. His voice is sickeningly familiar.

Peter snarls, in the glow of the interior lights his cheeks are flushed, lips wet. The high of a kill radiates off him. Chris spares a thought to the fact that the half hidden boy doesn’t seem to care, he just continues to curse and shove at Peter like he’s going to make it very far even if he does get out of the door. 

A moment later the hood comes down, because Peter yanks it down, and Chris is the one swearing loud enough to echo. 

"Stiles?" Chris has to be sure, though the instant pressure headache stemming up behind his eyes is very convincing. So is the too big, too furious whiskey gaze that turns toward him.

"Peter killed my ride," Stiles snaps out but he's more subdued when he stares at Chris, the shadows on his face are darkest under his eyes and jaw. The strings of his hoodie are being twisted up in clenching fingers. The knot on the end of the left one is undone, the threads frayed for a couple of inches and interrupted with a new knot tied to cut off the spread. It looks like shit. 

Peter waves a hand at Stiles, sharp, gesticulating his irritation before he even opens his mouth. The look he shares over with Chris is stomach dropping. 

"You're welcome," Peter snarks when his gaze resettles on the teen he’s barring from the door. The scowl on his face is sarcastic, tempering down from the blood-lust he'd had glossing his eyes a moment ago.

"Fuck you," Stiles shoots it off, cheap and young, fiery. The tremor in his voice is what finally snaps both men into real consideration. Stiles' swollen lip stands out in the overhead lighting. Chris watches him bite it while the anger on his face flickers to something that’s too vulnerable to look at. 

Chris rubs a hand across his face. He can’t bring himself to ask any of the right questions. There’s a dead man they don’t want to be caught with.

"We have to get out of here."

The car trembles when Peter shuts Stiles' door and again when he closes the passenger side after himself. It seems a little immature, but that doesn't surprise Chris. Peter's index finger runs down the side panel to trigger the locks on the doors and his seat belt slithers loudly to click into place at his hip. “We passed a motel ten miles back.” There’s a distinct lack of tone in the wolf’s voice, his shoulders forcibly loose and his fingers rubbing against his cheek, along the line where his stubble has grown in. A habit he’s picked up from Chris. 

Nodding curtly, Chris kills the interior lights and rubs a hand down the back of his neck to squeeze around his thick nape, fingertips tight into muscle. A habit adopted from Peter. 

Stiles stares out the tinted window with the heels of his decomposing keds on the edge of the leather. 

Vance Joy keeps singing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is implied that Stiles was with a trucker in a bathroom, and off screen Peter kills the trucker.  
> There's a sentence about Chris feeling dissociation. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've all been so nice to me. I appreciate the kudos and the comments, it's been a really encouraging start to sharing my writing. I really wasn't sure anyone would come along for this ride with me but here ya'll are so thank you. 
> 
> Notes at the end for brief content summary

The car is unsettling when the only noise is the hum of driving: the engine, the all seasons on the wet pavement and the hood cutting through the air as they speed. Chris doesn’t risk checking the rearview because he doesn’t want to see Stiles sitting coiled up in the back and he really doesn’t want to think about what the kid looks like now. Older, that much he knows; his first glance over had told him that. He might even look like John if it weren’t so dark.

Allison would have started to resemble Victoria’s sister by now; they had the same eyes and chin. She’d have lost the teenager youth; would have grown into the adult he never got to meet.

Chris shifts in his seat, leg stretching out the best he can while maintaining his foot on the pedal. His knee bounces twice.The strangling guilt Chris carries around crawls up his throat until he has to swallow and press his tongue against his teeth; the protein drink he’d sucked down an hour ago left them gritty.

Peter’s heavy palm lands on Chris’s leg hard enough to make his thigh twitch under the ensuing grip. Chris can guess what he must smell like; the wolf gets tactile when either of them start to fall into the specific misery he’s feeling now.

The stereo continues to croon into the car but when the song changes Peter’s fussing with Chris’s phone to jump passed the Aerosmith slow jams to Cage the Elephant.

Chris feels guilty about it, always does, but Peter’s jarring sense of humor eases the pressure from the base of his lungs.

They drive like that, with Peter smirking to himself as they take an exit that loops them back to the south side of the highway.

When he looks over again, Chris’s gaze catches on the splatters of inky red decorating his partner. “Change your shirt, Peter, _Jesus_ .” It barely sounds admonishing when it’s mostly breath, but Chris tries, and the tighter fingertips on his leg feels like a fair response.

“Stiles,” Peter waits until brown eyes move from the window to the space between the front seats. “Pass me a shirt from the bag beside you,” the wolf twists in his seat to gesture to the duffel Chris had yanked clothes from in the parking lot.

There’s movement in Chris’s peripheral, shadowy rummaging elbows, and then a black tee-shirt is sailing over the center console. It almost smacks into the dash but Peter snatches it and makes a show of taking off his bloodstained one.

“You never let me bask in it,” Peter complains, and Chris knows it’s just to hear his own voice. “It’s always: change your shirt Peter, brush your teeth Peter, not in _this_ fucking car Peter.”

There’s a snort from the backseat that feels like a windshield chip in the tension.

\-----

The motel they pull into has a flickering vacancy sign; it’s the nicest thing about the place.

The parking lot smells like piss and there’s broken glass littering the sidewalk up to the office where a bell announces Chris’s solo entrance much louder than the thud of his boots over the threshold.

“Need a room,” he says and slaps down cash to the cut out in the counter; more cash than a shithole would have any dream of asking for. A surplus of money in the bank means he and Peter have never worried about the cost of discretion.

The woman behind the polycarbonate divider doesn’t lift her watery eyes up from her phone longer than it takes to appraise the stack of bills. Her bubble gum pops as a key attached to a chipped plastic number clatters through the slot just a moment after the money is fed into a lock box at her feet.

His key reads 4A and when he’s back outside and looks over at the long building he can tell the letter designates them on the ground level of the two story dump.

It looks like the kind of haunt that movies try to mimic to get that specific _might get murdered_ ambiance. Chris knows he can’t really complain about it considering he’s got a murderer sitting in the car arguing with their kidnapped teenager’s taste in music.

“Who let the dogs out does not have the same ironic value as Hungry like the Wolf,” Peter is sniping, fully turned around in his seat. “And, it’s an irritating song I would never voluntarily listen to.”

“You’ll play Beast though?” Stiles has a leg hanging out of the SUV; the door open since they parked. “It’s funnier. It’s funnier Peter, you can’t fucking argue that.”

“That’s racist,” Peter sniffs and then turns his head over to meet Chris’s approaching gaze. Peter’s brows are up and the corner of his mouth budges in the direction of a smirk he is visibly containing. “Stiles is making dog jokes.”

Chris shrugs both shoulders, “you put him in the car.” He knows that Peter hates anything in the vein of canine humor, he’ll make the occasional crack about himself when the mood strikes but he doesn’t tolerate it from anyone else. Chris is surprised that he looks unbothered.

The keys jangle when Chris holds them up and gestures Stiles out of the car with a hike of his thumb. “We’ve got that room,” he points two doors down from the stall they’d pulled up into and moves around the back of the SUV to tap his knuckles against.

There’s a quiet snick and whuff before the back door is popping up and Chris eases it up above his head.

Peter slinks out of his seat and gives Stiles a pointed snub as he skirts him to get to Chris, specifically the keys he’s holding and the overnight bag stacked on the top of their totes and duffels of supplies. 

“This place looks like we’ll be sleeping in the car,” Peter says with a distinct wrinkle to his nose. He shoulders a bag to each arm and leans forward in a distracted way Chris recognizes as skin seeking.

“Your breath, Peter,” Chris reminds as he leans away from the wolf and snatches up a soft sided cooler. The trunk comes down and he bounces his weight against it to be sure its closed; it doesn’t stick like his old one but the habit’s still there.

A loose chunk of concrete skitters through a scatter of glass and startles the men into looking back over at Stiles. He’s standing with the grimey yellow motel porch lights at his back, it makes him look bigger than he is. Nothing to distinguish between the lumps of his sweater the outline of his body in the dim.

Stiles rubs his hand through his shorn hair and then crosses them both under his armpits. “You know, this is the first time anyone’s thrown me in the back of their murder van before taking me to a shitty motel.”

Chris blinks and raises a brow a little. He doesn’t want to feed into the restless energy clearly spooling out of the teenager. Stiles’ fingers are fiddling and his body shifts like his weight doesn’t know where to settle.

It’s not hard to see how quickly uncertain and displeased could turn hostile, Chris watches Stiles shoulders hitching the longer they stare at him.

Peter breaks the half stunned silence first by locking the car and starts walking towards their room. “It’s not a van Stiles, it’s a sport utility vehicle. Roomy,” his fingers flip and it’s a flamboyant gesture Chris recognizes as put on, “without screaming government watch list.”

“Right, ‘cause you’re not on any of those,” Stiles drawls; his gaze flicks to Chris once before he follows Peter with curved in shoulders. “A back from the dead millionaire and an ex arms dealer with a name that comes up too much.”

“Yes, well, it’s not the car that tips people off,” Peter jabs the key into the motel room door and braces himself before he actually opens it.

There’s always a pause, a scent acclimation before he’ll enter something this low class by choice. This time’s the same. Peter inhales shallowly, and then deeper, eyes skimming in the dark for the things that scurry when the lights come on.

“Aside from the pesticides I can’t smell anything too malevolent.” Peter steps in and palms the wall which turns on a lamp beside the tightly made double bed that centers the little room.

“Christopher is afraid of cockroaches,” he says to Stiles so plainly it makes Chris grunt irritably behind them.

“No bedbugs?” Chris asks as he squints at the bed. It looks flammable and the thin plasticy blanket is a rosey pink he’s only ever seen in motels.

“Gross,” Stiles hisses as he steps another foot away from the mattress and coils into himself, face twisted.

Peter looks between them before he lets his bags fall to the bed where they bounce and settle, “no bedbugs.“

It’s a small blessing, and the prospect of catching sleep in a truly horizontal position reminds Chris how sore he is. He rolls both shoulders and moves to the bed, shoving the duffels aside so he can sit and then stretch out. The cooler bag abandoned with the others as he rubs his hands over his face.

“I’ll take the first shower, unless anyone would like to share?” Peter asks as he smoothes a concerned expression away from Chris and to the bag he’s rummaging through for a toiletry pouch.

“Fuck off,” Stiles responds when Peter looks at him and his shoulder pull up near his ears. Stiles looks so defensive and flighty that Chris wonders if he won’t try and dart out on them.

“Your loss,” Peter quips back with a smirk that’s too crafted not to be obvious, “if there’s no hot water left.”

“Just go wash off, you’ve got blood in your beard,” Chris says from under his palms. Trying to rub the tension headache out of his face.

Peter scratches at the faint rust in his facial hair with a scowl but does disappear into the little stall of the attached bathroom.

“So,” Stiles starts and his body is rigid before he takes a breath and goes languid, approaching the bed to sit near Chris’s knees. “You going to ask what a good kid like me was doing in a truck stop?” 

“I think I know what you were doing,” Chris intones flatly as he moves his hands from his face and props his torso up by his elbows to look at Stiles with a less severe height difference. 

“Just paying my way; rides aren’t free,” Stiles speaks as he lifts a hand and settles delicate fingers around Christopher’s knee. “And I still need one.”

The pipes in the wall behind them groan as the water comes on in the other room but Chris barely notices. His attention is caught on Stiles’ hand.

All of his knuckles are bruised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chris thinks back on Allison and is still grieving
> 
> I think that's it, if ya'll notice anything else worth putting here let me know. 
> 
> Come say hi at my tumblr: thewineabout.tumblr.com


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gosh heck, I'm sorry for the delayed update ~life~ ya know? Good news is that I should be getting chapters out faster now so I hope ya'll forgive me. 
> 
> Notes at the end for a brief summary.

There’s a watery wheeze from behind the wall; a sputter and rattle of pipes that makes Chris think Peter had been right about the availability of hot water. He feels like the noise of them has gotten louder but really it’s probably the pin-drop silence that’s landed with Stiles’ words.

It was a proposition. Chris knows as much, he isn’t stupid, but for once he doesn’t have the appropriate response. Prior to this he thought he’d had an instinct for every situation that stunned him.

“Listen kid,” Chris starts and he’s interrupted by how tight Stiles’ hand grips his knee; it slides up to the muscle above the joint and squeezes. “Stiles.”

There’s an unnatural stillness when Stiles lifts his eyes from Chris’s chest up to meet his gaze. It’s clear the careful tone tipped the boy off of the edge he’d poised himself on.   


“I’m an adult,” Stiles says like the anthem of all misguided youths. “Just, no, fuck you. I’m an adult. I don’t want to hear any demeaning bullshit about my life choices.”

“Tough shit,” Chris reaches for Stiles’ hand, that’s still on his leg, and pulls it off to hold up between them so he can keep the kid from slipping away on him. The urgency is clear in Stiles’ posture.

“Peter isn’t sentimental. He didn’t make you our problem because he feels any responsibility for some mess we used to know.” Chris sits up better on the bed and drops Stiles’ wrist which has been pulling away, fingers curled in a tight fist, since he grabbed it. “But, I know the things he won’t tolerate; what he kills about-- so I’m going to say you’re making some bad choices.”

“You-- Peter guts someone, and I’m the one making bad choices?” Stiles face scrunches and he flings his hands out, long fingers spread. “What kind of moral trash bin delusion are you living in?”   


Chris shrugs and it seems to frustrate Stiles further. The boy gets up off the bed, tucking his hands away into his hoodie pocket to fiddle with something that rotates flat edged against the fabric between the outline of Stiles’ knuckles.   


“That’s fucked,” Stiles emphasizes, but his voice is quiet, nose wrinkling at the upturn. He lifts his hands and rubs at his face, fingertips sharp under his eyes a moment, blanching the dark circles.

The lamp beside them flickers. Stiles’ doesn’t acknowledge the blink of darkness but Chris wonders about the durability of the electrical in a place this ramshackle. He wonders how often they have to throw the breakers in the middle of the night.   


Silence creeps up on them again, just the noises of the motel around them breaking it up, tension starts to spool between them. Chris can see it in Stiles’ shoulders and feels the ache between his own.   


“You want to clean up your face?” Chris asks as he sighs, deep, the kind that reminds him too much of parenting and late nights feeling out of his depth; he always had been.   


The hunter in him gets his hands busy, knuckles cracking at the thumb on his right as he grabs for a duffel bag to drag nearer to his hip. “Sit down, Stiles.”   


There’s a moment that Chris thinks Stiles is going to head for the door instead, but the kid sits slowly. Further away from him so he’s in line with Chris’s shins instead of his hips. The distance feels safer.   


“Wouldn’t want to infect the money maker,” Stiles says and it’s barely a joke, his voice is too tight, body too curled in.   


Chris unzips the duffel, his fingers brush over the muddy orange bleach stain as he peels back to the top to get the worn out first aid kit. It’s classic red, the white cross peeling off the front in crackles at a time. A flake of the plasticy paint dusts off onto the bed cover as Chris opens it up and rummages.    
  
Stiles shifts where he sits, bringing a knee up so he’s twisted to face Chris. The way he stares feels physical and Chris has to work to ignore him as he takes out a few BZK wipes and hand sanitizer. “You want to-”

“No,” Stiles cuts him off softly, and Chris doesn’t understand the expression on his face but the way he leans forward is unsettling. Vulnerable. Stiles looks vulnerable with his lips parted and his body leaned far enough forward that it wouldn’t take any effort to unsettle his balance. “You do it,” Stiles adds.   


Hand sanitizer perfumes the space between them with sharp alcohol that stings the sinuses and the little cuts Chris didn’t know he had. The webbing between his middle and ring still burns as he shakes them out to dry before he slips on a pair of nitrile gloves that cling to the damp parts of his skin.

“Hold still,” Chris says as he picks up a wipe packet. When he looks up Stiles’ mouth has curved a bit, eyes down on the way he rips the foil, and Chris isn’t oblivious to the jokes the kid is thinking about.   


It seems fortunate that he can’t talk while Chris cleans the blood off his chin, a thin trickle that’s smeared more than dried. Chris’s hands are careful; one propping Stiles’ face with two fingers against his jaw, the other dabbing the antiseptic along the seam of the wound. The edges are a little ragged, like Stiles was biting at it during the car ride.   


Stiles hands are the only thing fidgeting, twisting and untwisting in his sleeves before they rest against Chris’s leg again. He’s wrapping around Chris’s shin and squeezing when the friction of the wipe stings him. The antiseptic shouldn’t feel anything but cold, so it’s touching the split that makes his breath catch.   


Chris thinks he should have made the kid do it himself when he can see the way Stiles’ breathes, the way he doesn’t flinch when he wants to, and the way his eyelids have slid a little lower. Peter is shameless so Chris has become very aware of when he’s being seduced. He’s got enough practice to ignore the touch, the gaze and the proximity; focusing on the task at hand until Stiles’ lip is cleaned.   


Stripping the gloves off with a rubbery squeak and crumple, Chris leans back and shakes his leg free from Stiles’ grip as he moves to stand up. He tosses the garbage and sanitizes his hands again while he looks at the window.

There’s black mildew lining the damp edge of the metal framing the glass, Chris wonders if the smell of it will bother Peter. Though, really, it probably isn’t near the worst odor in the room.   


“This stuff tastes like shit,” Stiles’ complains where he’s flopped backwards with his head up on a bag and his hands back into his pocket.

“Don’t lick it,” Chris says, restraining an eye roll, as he hears the thud of the water shutting off in the other room.   


Stiles huffs and looks over Chris again before he shimmies on the bed to adjust the way the mattress edge is digging into the back of his knees.

“What are you guys doing -- I was going to say out here, but the where part isn’t what’s, you know, really weird? What are you and Peter Hale doing on a road trip. A shitty one.” Stiles’ face scrunches and his hands are moving animatedly above him. “You guys had so much laundry in the back. And no offence but you both kinda look,” Stiles trails off as he looks over Chris, catching on the short beard.   


Chris raises a hand to try and stopper the speech, tension pinching between his brows sharply enough that he presses his thumb against it. As much as he didn’t want to hear about Stiles situation, he was even less interested in talking about his own.   


“We haven’t stopped in a while,” Chris admits with a flat expression he hopes signals he doesn’t want to chat about his life. “Do you want to take a shower?”   


The door to the bathroom was never closed; the sound of Peter toweling off and rummaging is clear through the room. There’s a short pause before a buzz echoes and sharply draws Chris’s attention. Peter’s been scruffy for a few weeks, artfully, he’d argue, but still a lot fuller in the facial hair than when they weren’t steady on the road.   


When the wolf comes back, towel around his hips, clothes slung over his arm, phone in hand, hair wet and curling, he’s stubbled. It’s startling enough that Chris feels his mouth pull into a frown that’s more amused than his smile could express.

“Yeah,” Stiles mumbles, sitting up now that Peter’s in the room, looking both more wary and more interested. “I’ll shower. Do you have a shirt I could borrow? This one’s a little...” He lifts the collar of his sweater to shove his nose underneath.   


“Lived in,” Peter finishes for him with distaste in his voice as he moves to the side of the bed Stiles isn’t sitting on to rummage for the fresh clothes he hadn’t had a chance to get into at the rest stop.   


Stiles scowls as he stands back up and loiters near the end of the bed while Chris comes over to fish out a shirt from his own supply. The fabric is soft and worn, Stiles latches onto it when Chris holds it out, and there’s a brief look of surprise on his face as he touches the material more thoughtfully on his way into the bathroom.   


“What are you thinking?” Chris asks Peter when the bathroom door clicks shut and they’re alone.

Peter looks over as he slips his shirt back on and starts moving the bags to the shakey looking table that is already crowded with a spiral corded phone and lamp missing its bulb. “Something happened in Beacon Hills,” Peter starts and there’s a visible weight being added to his shoulders.   


The wolf looks exhausted and Chris shares the strange pressure that settles and drags in his belly. It had been a good couple of years; nothing pulling them back to their hometown and reminding them how entwined they were with a place that diseased.   


“Do we have to go back?”   


The silence from Peter is enough of an answer for Chris. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chris cleans Stiles' split lip. Awkward talk. Swearing. I don't know if I need to warn for anything in this chapter. Ya'll let me know though. 
> 
> Next chapter sometime tomorrow! 
> 
> All editing is my own so if there are any horrible mistakes feel free to let me know. I would appreciate it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thank you for reading, and all the positivity! updated the tags so check that out. And check out the end notes for a quick summary of content.

Dressed in fresh boxer briefs Peter gets out another pair from his bag and some socks for Stiles. He sets them out on the end of the bed with too much care. Chris doesn’t like the little crease between his brows or the way his fingers smooth over the elastic waist of the shorts.  


“The Sheriff’s dead,” Peter states as he looks up and over. He’s holding a hand out which Chris threads his fingers through as he approaches and allows the wolf to pull them chest to chest.  


Peter presses into his cheek to breathe, and it’s a moment of shared grief. Distant, because they hadn’t been overly friendly with the Sheriff, and they emphasized with Stiles, but it was the reminder of loss that had them both so heavy.  


“Hunting accident,” Peter informs, he must have looked it up in the bathroom.    
  
Chris pulls away, rubbing his palm against Peter’s nape briefly as he does to move and sit on the side of the bed. “He didn’t hunt,” he says with an implied question and the itch of something not quite right.

Peter’s lips thin, a slow sigh leaves him before he’s crawling into the bed, taking up the middle and creating a series of lumps under the blankets. He pats the space beside him and Chris rolls his eyes but kicks off his boots to oblige; he stays on top of the blankets as he settles against the headboard.  


“He didn’t hunt,” Peter answers and he’s got his head tipped back and his eyes closed. His phone screen lights up and dims as he absently presses the lock button on the side.

It would be too much to ask for a normal tragedy, Chris should have known better than to hope, but he’s resentful about it anyway.  


“That doesn’t mean it’s something supernatural,” Chris argues fully aware it’s in vain.  


They both stray a gaze toward the bathroom where Stiles drops something that thunks around the tub, swearing about it in short aggressive tones that muffle through the thin walls.  


Peter’s feet shift under the blanket and he lifts his neck so he’s slouched and looking at his phone screen as he lights it up, unlocks it with a passcode Chris doesn’t know when he learned, and shows off the article he’d found.  


The Beaconhills press had a digital archive and the small logo on the top of the screen makes Chris grit his teeth as he takes over the device to skim the article.  


It had been a Saturday five months ago, dawn, out on the edge of public property that backed the preserved forests the Hales had maintained. Apparently the Sheriff went out on a call about some drunks in the woods and never came back.  


The details weren’t clear but the shot up target deer and scatter of beer cans near Stilinski’s body had seemed enough to whomever had succeeded the Sheriff.  


An article a week later reported on a man dead in his motel room with enough hunting gear to supply a rebellion. DNA matched some of the discarded beer cans. Chris notes that there aren’t any pictures, not even of the motel, and the man has no name but he’s younger than expected; early thirties and suspiciously clean for an infarction.  


“This still doesn’t mean it’s supernatural,” Chris needs to point out, just to hear it, and Peter pats his thigh. It’s a placating weight he can’t help but shift away from.  


“I only read the headlines and it’s clear; prior to this there have been several  _ hunting accidents _ , a few strange animal sightings in town, and even the meager journalism efforts of Beaconhills thought the Sheriff’s death was glazed over too quickly.” Peter sniffs and takes back his phone to continue down the archive of news articles with a pinch to his brow. “And there’s nothing else about this dead man-”  


“Maybe the investigation is still open.”

“Christopher,” Peter drawls slowly while he pulls his knees up, feet flat on the bed. “Stiles is whoring his way up the coast.”  


“Fuck,” Chris says and rubs at his face before he slouches down and leans his temple on Peter’s shoulder. He’s so tired and sore. “Grief-”

“Christopher, _ I know Stiles _ ,” Peter cuts him off, using a tone that could slice stone with surgical precision. “He’s only reckless when he feels he needs to be, this isn’t a grief spiral. I know what that smells like.” The subtle accusation under it makes Chris sit up again, hands flexing out and his arms crossing.  


They both remember how bad things got when Chris was at his worst; that kind of reckless only came when there wasn’t anything else left. Peter probably thought he was projecting on the kid.  


“So, you ask him then,” Chris decides, voice a little stiff as he moves to get back up; he’s stopped by Peter’s arm across his belly.  


“I will,” Peter says quietly, his hand stretching out and sliding down Chris’s thigh. “We don’t have to get involved this time -- we can give him some money and drop him off somewhere populated.”  


Chris knows it’s more than Peter being callous that he offers because underneath the completely self serving dickishness Peter liked to get involved in this kind of problem; if just for the blood and the satisfaction of accomplishing what someone else couldn’t.  


With nothing left to lose Peter had become a terrible problem solver in the community.  


And he  _ knew Stiles _ whatever that meant; it had sounded just personal enough that Chris couldn’t ignore that it explained the way he’d been watching the kid.  


Chris should ask more questions, he should, but he doesn’t want to know. Instead he settles back on the bed, eyes closed tight enough it kind of aches. The heels of either of his hands press down firmly against his lids until the blackness is broken up by random sparks of red and white.  


“In the morning. We’ll figure him out in the morning,” Chris says; a request not to start anything and an admission that whatever the hell is happening they’re getting involved. They won’t ditch Stiles.  


Years ago he wouldn’t have needed encouragement to gear up and investigate but, years ago he was stupid.  


“There’s my good hunter,” Peter croons and the smirk is audible Chris cracks an annoyed smile of his own and puffs a breath.  


“Fuck off.”  


“Oh come on, Christopher, you’ve never been able to resist a wounded animal,” Peter goads him.  


The bed shifts until Peter’s crossed the meager space between them to hover over Chris. He can feel the weight of the wolf in the dent he creates with a knee by his hip and the hands that brace to either side of Chris’s head.

The petty in him wants to ignore the proximity, just keep his eyes closed and covered. It would serve Peter right for kidnapping someone without consulting first. A soft kiss to the back of Chris’s hand changes his mind. Chris shifts his fingers up and strokes Peter’s wet hair back, catching through the ringlets that will dry into a wave later.  


“Are we going to pretend that I haven’t put a few of them down, for the sake of your metaphor?” Chris asks with a twist to his mouth and a pinch between his sandy brows. Peter’s arched his neck into the petting which Chris doesn’t know why he’s so obliged to continue.  


“For the sake of my  _ analogy, _ no we’re not,” Peter snips at him, and laughs at the irritable groan Chris can’t contain. Though he isn’t laughing when Chris gives him a shove back to his own side of the bed.  


Peter makes a show of pouting as he flops back and resettles the rucked up blankets. “I’m saying you can be trusted to do what’s best,” his partner continues, with a soft flicker of cold blue eyes and a gentle palm that cups around Christopher’s jaw.  


“Not sure I’d trust your judgment on that,” Chris says, because he doesn’t like moral compliments from Peter. As much as he knows that Peter is capable of amazing good, the wolf will always serve his loyalties first and a sense of justice or morality second.

The water shuts off in the other room and draws both men to staring in the direction of the closed door.  


“You know,” Peter says, slow, crafted and absolutely soaked in his smirk, “if I didn’t know you were boring, I’d think getting a single bed might mean something, Christopher.”

Chris looks over sharply at the expanse of ugly polyester and the lump of werewolf underneath it. He hadn’t even considered -- it’s been the two of them for so long.  


“Shit,” he groans while Peter continues to grin. “We should sleep in the car.”

“No.”

“Peter--”

“No.”

“This is inappropriate.”

“Relax Chris, it’s not my first threesome,” Stiles quips from where he’s standing just outside the bathroom and watching them with raised up brows. “There was these guys in Oregon-”  


Chris shakes his head and makes a gruff noise of discouragement, it’s not a groan, not quite, but it still makes the other two smirk at him like they’re enjoying his discomfort.  


Bastards probably are.  


“Just change and get in,” Chris snaps after a moment of Stiles roughly toweling off his hair and standing there in his undone jeans and borrowed shirt; looking more like a man than Chris wants to consider.

Peter beats a pillow into place and doesn’t seem to even think to pretend he isn’t watching the way Stiles only half turns from them to change into the clean shorts that had been left out for him; Stiles even hops into the socks before he’s at the side of the bed.  


“These feel fucking great, clean underwear sweet Lord,” Stiles groans as he gets into bed with hunched shoulders and fingers that immediately latch onto a loose thread and start to twiddle with it once he’s down on his back. Chris thinks he looks nervous, a little pink even, but he doesn’t comment.  


“You’re welcome,” Peter purrs and he’s shifted to laying on his side facing Stiles instead of Chris. The nerve of it alone means Chris doesn’t feel too bad when he elbows Peter in the ribs as he gets up to turn the light off.  


The sudden dark makes the room feel quieter.  


“Get your dog breath out of my face,” Stiles says in a grumpy huff, the blanket on sheet friction a loud crinkle as he kicks his feet around and makes the cranky old bed creak.  


“Extremely rude,” Peter complains and rolls back over to embrace Chris when the hunter slides into bed too.  


There’s silence as Chris tries to focus on loosening from the board like tightness running down his entire spine. Peter snuffles a little until he’s got his nose pressed into Chris’s shoulder and can breathe him in while he settles. Stiles shifts around again, then again, the third time there’s an outline of a foot banging up the blanket and then bouncing back down.  


At the fourth shift, Peter growls, Chris frowns and Stiles pauses before he giggles. An actual giggle, maybe a snicker and quiets completely.  


The boy’s voice gets very deep and serious as he raises it to ask, “no homo, right guys? Chris?”

“For fucks sake,” Chris grumbles into the air and shifts around to his side facing away from his two bedmates; Peter follows to wrap around him and breathe hotly between Chris’s shoulder blades.  


“Okay then, a little homo,” Stiles adds and then yelps quietly after a quick shift in the blanket says that Peter’s kicked him. 

Chris reluctantly falls asleep with the heat of Peter soothing his sore back and the scrape and rustle of bedding as Stiles squirms around. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content/warnings? :  
> Peter and Chris discuss the Sheriff having died, it's very much implied that he was shot in the woods.  
> Use of a sexworker slur.  
> Bed sharing. BEd ShaRiNg! 
> 
> Come say hi at my tumblr: thewineabout.tumblr.com


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So after some health issues. I'm back at it. Sorry for the wait. Check the end notes for a chapter summary! Hope y'all are still here for this.

The shitty motel curtains flutter when the ancient AC unit turns itself on and off in seemingly random intervals. Sunlight flickers in on them and makes Chris squint when he alert enough to be called awake. It isn’t that bright, but it’s golden and annoying when he’d like to be sleeping in. He never gets to sleep in. 

“Hey, you’re awake,” Stiles chimes from where he’s sitting across the room on top of the desk staring at him, “I’m starving.” The hunter jerks and catches an elbow into Peter’s ribs hard enough to jostle him; the answering snarl barely registers. 

For his part Stiles doesn’t seem to notice the way Chris has half sat up in alarm. The kid is tapping away at what must be his phone though it seems to be plugged into Peter’s charger. 

“Probably got a protein bar somewhere,” Chris drawls in a sleep roughened voice as he shoves the rest of the way up to sitting by dislodging Peter’s arm from his belly. The wolfish snuffle of complaint isn’t that endearing but the way Peter’s blue eyes squint up at him sort of is. Chris drops his hand into Peter’s sweat damp curls to push them off of his temple. 

After a long and drawn out yawn, Peter tilts his chin up high enough to strain his throat and rub his mouth against Chris’s palm. He takes it between his teeth and yawns around it, Chris has never asked why he does it, but he’s gotten used to Peter teething on him. 

“He’s already raided our bags for food,” Peter informs as he sits and shivers once the cool air of the motel room comes into contact with the thin layer of sweat on his skin. It pebbles up and then smooths as the wolf rubs his palms down his own arms and face, applying pressure enough that Chris watches the skin under his eyes blanche. 

“You guys are pretty deep sleepers,” Stiles confirms though he’s smirking, eyes too bright and his split lip looks raw and strained. He makes Chris nervous. 

They aren’t deep sleepers. They’re horribly light sleepers, they wake each other up with a wrong hitch of breath or a nighttime mumble. Stiles was just — quiet. Even now he was sitting there so still and silent he felt like an apparition; dark eyes mirthful and unsettling. 

Peter doesn’t seem bothered though, he’s rolling his eyes and staring at Stiles with something that looks a lot like amusement. Like he’s fond. Chris doesn’t know what to do with that. 

“I’m going to shower,” Chris grunts as he climbs out of bed and into his boots to bypass having to think any harder about either of them. Hot water will do him some good. It doesn’t matter that when he looks back he notices that Stiles fills out Peter’s shirt in the shoulders and his bare knees are bruised. 

When he’s in the greyed out bathroom it takes a few minutes for the water to rattle out warm and then he only has a few minutes of scalding before it starts to cool off as other people in the motel make use of the hot water tank.

Chris washes with Peter’s products, knows Stiles did to, but he won’t think about that as he’s rubbing the stupid oatmilk bar between his hands to scrub the sweat off his neck. 

He turns off the water when it’s lukewarm, the metal taps squeal and he can hear laughter coming from the other room without the white noise of the shower head. Chris stills for a moment, dripping and cold, water skating down his chest. Stiles’ laugh is deeper than he thought it would be and Peter’s… it’s just not as mean as he’s used to.

Their voices are hushed and Chris can’t make out words unless he strains himself, so he doesn’t. He dries off with militant efficiency and brushes his teeth with blank eyes in the chipped mirror. 

Chris walks back to the main room with wet bare feet in his boots and a towel on his hips because he’s not used to having to bring his clean clothes with him. Stiles stares at him, and Chris tells himself he doesn’t care that he can tell that his scars are what’s eye catching. The kid looks sober with his lips parted and his dark eyes so focused. 

Chris digs out another shirt and undershorts and goes back to the bathroom to preserve some dignity as he changes back into his jeans from the day before. 

They’re laughing again when Chris comes back dragging himself into the routine of getting ready to leave. He’s reordering his bag and checking his phone in silence while they watch him and Chris itches with the desire to know what they could possibly be looking at; what they were laughing about. 

“Pretty sure they don’t have room service so if you want to eat,” Chris hikes a thumb as a general indicator that everyone who isn’t wearing pants needs to be so they can leave. He prods Peter in the thigh with a sharp few fingers before putting their bags on the bed beside him to recount everything that had been removed.

Kicking Peter out of bed was usually a lot more fun; convincing his wolf with sharp kisses and hot hands was part of their routine. Peter liked being manhandled in the morning. 

“There’s an IHOP not far from here,” Peter shifts his legs under the blankets before he’s flinging them off himself. They billow and land over Chris’s bags so he has to shove them away again to continue stuffing their collective dirty clothes into a plastic bag. 

Stiles stretches his legs down to the floor from his perch and then embodies liquid in the way he rolls out his back and arms. “I like pancakes,” he starts helping himself into Peter’s bag and measuring out a pair of joggers against his hips. They seem to pass the test as he climbs into them. “The guy Peter turned into carpaccio loved pancakes, but he was diabetic so he had to carb count. I didn’t see a point when he’d put that much syrup on top but, shit, what do I know?” 

The pants don’t fit. They’re too big in the hips but Stiles yanks the drawstrings and twists them in a way that ensures that they’ll be permanently wrinkled. Peter’s scowling, but Chris doesn’t think that’s why. 

“He had that nerve thing in his hands, apparently. Didn’t seem to stop him from using them,” Stiles is smirking, brows waggling in a mock of suggestion, now dressed entirely in Peter’s clothes while he leans his weight behind him into his hands on the desk so his hips jut out. 

“Well that’s certainly not true anymore,” Peter snarks with tension in his shoulders that’s sore to look at. He’s not usually so easy to rile. 

Chris blows a slow breath and ignores Stiles. He recognizes when a kid is trying to get a response. He can almost hear Allison’s voice, angry and quiet as she accused him of treating her like a child; when she’d thrown out that her mother wouldn’t have, that he wasn’t even trying. He had been, but he didn’t know how to tell her that; didn’t know how to admit he was doing his best and it wasn’t enough. Her eyes were always so big when she got mad at him. 

Chris can’t remember what they’d been fighting about exactly or what he’d said no to. Just that she would tuck her hair behind her ear and cross her arms, fingers digging in so hard he always thought she’d get bruises from trying to contain herself. She was looking for something he didn’t know how to be then and he never had time to figure it out for her. But he’d learned to stop getting angry when she needed to press his buttons. 

“Christopher,” Peter’s voice cuts him out of his thoughts in a tone that says it’s not the first time he’s said it. A warm palm wraps around the back of his neck and Peter’s thumb sweeps in his wet hairline. It doesn’t feel as grounding as it usually does so Chris shrugs him off and zips the bag he’s been fussing with closed. The zipper catches when his hands jerk a bit too hard. 

“I’ll be in the car,” Chris tells them without a look back as he grabs up half the bags Peter had brought in and the motel keys to drop in the mail slot at the front office. 

“Shit,” Stiles murmurs in a tone that sounds too old for him as the motel door swings shut behind Chris’s heavy boots. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gang wakes up and starts packing. Chris is reminded of Allison and gets a little lost in a memory of her. Idk. Tell me if y'all see anything that needs a warning or a new tag


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and for the kudos and comments that you've already left here. I love hearing from you and the encouragement means a lot! Let me know what y'all think of where this is headed? End notes for summary!

They end up at Mcdonalds because Stiles sees the Golden Arches off in the distance and slams his hands down so hard onto the back of the passenger seat the slap of the leather startles Peter; Stiles chattering about a sudden craving for mcsausage over both men’s cursing.

For some reason, enthusiasm like that was worth the inevitable heartburn. 

“You got a fruit and fiber muffin,” Stiles drawls where he’s bouncing on his heels and staring up at the back lit menu board as if he hadn’t already ordered. “I’m pretty sure with the amount of sugar in them, it doesn’t really matter if you get a tiny bit more roughage. Treat yourself, get the blueberry once in awhile.” 

Chris isn’t sure if he’s annoyed yet, he’ll decide after the coffee he’s ordered crosses the counter. 

“He’s right,” Peter chips in where he’s standing beside Stiles and staring at a fruit fly in the display pastry glass. “And you get plenty of roughage-”

“That’s enough,” Chris waves a hand before it rubs up over his face and scratches at his beard. A scowl apparently not very disuading because they both look at him with the biggest fucking smirks. 

“You’re not a morning person,” Stiles grins, and he looks equally delighted and fascinated. “I figured you’d be the up and at ’em type. Wake with the sun. Jog before breakfast.” 

“I don’t jog,” Chris looks over and narrows his eyes at the kid, he’s not sure what sort of picture Stiles has of him from their encounters in Beacon Hills, but he’s pretty sure it’s a load of crap. “And no one lives with a werewolf and wakes with the sun.” 

Peter makes an agreeing noise in his throat and then steps up to accept his overly milky peppermint tea and Christopher’s dark roast from a tired looking employee with a visor on crooked. “Not when we’re out frolicking in the moonlight ‘till dawn.” Peter flicks a glance down to Chris’s hands as he takes the paper cup. 

“I’d give my left ass cheek to see you frolicking anywhere,” Stiles snorts and it’s addressed to Peter but the way he looks over at Chris seems to encompass him too. Chris shrugs a bit and sips his coffee.

It's burnt. 

The drive-thru is busy, so close to the highway and so in between decent places to stop so they have to wait a while for their food. It’s steaming when it comes and Stiles looks like Christmas when he’s unwrapping his breakfast sandwich so Chris doesn’t think any of them minded killing the time. 

“So are you going to ask or?” Stiles speaks with a disgusting amount of food in his mouth. Chris doesn’t look directly at him after that and Peter leans back into the booth as if he expects a spray. 

“Ask what?” Chris sips his coffee and peels at the sticker on the side of the cup. His short nail barely scrapes the edge of it loose. “Didn’t seem like you wanted to talk about it.” At least, not when he’d been busy snapping about being an adult. 

“Yeah well,” Stiles shrugs and he’s taken off the lid of his mocha so when he sips he ends up chewing on the waxy paper rim. “Changed my mind.” 

Peter rasps his plastic knife over his stack of pancakes and visibly winces at the sound of the teeth digging into the styrofoam tray. “You didn’t stay in town long enough for the funeral,” Peter says with exacting precision in a tone that could be casual if Chris didn’t know how well he could fake it.

There’s a jerk of movement and Stiles hastily steadying his cup onto the table top before he’s staring at them, between them, his mouth a blank line. Chris feels the hair on his arms stand up and he rubs down his jacket covered forearm before he glances at Peter. 

“It was in a news article,” Peter adds with a lift and drop of one shoulder before he brings up his fork to eat. The food stops his speech but the silence means that Chris feels the need to fill it. 

“We’re sorry, Stiles,” Chris says and startles a bit at the ferocious look that comes over Stiles’ face. 

“Everyone’s sorry,” Stiles bites out sharp and quiet, food and drink forgotten on the table as he grips the edge of it and leans back. “Doesn’t make a difference, does it?” 

“No,” Peter says, “it doesn’t.” 

Chris sips his coffee and no one says anything for a few breaths. Steeped in their own ghosts. It takes a minute before Chris remembers he’s done wallowing. 

“Tell us what happened,” Chris says in a tone he uses with clients, Peter’s shoulders seem to ease a little at the sound,“and what you’re trying to do about it.” 

Stiles visibly pauses, a breath pushing out of him and his fingers easing off the table before he picks up his food and takes a bite. Chris mirrors him, ripping off a piece of his muffin to chew on while he waits. There’s only a few other people scattered in seats around the restaurant, and nobody’s looked twice at them since they came in. 

“Someone came into Beacon Hills and lit it up. I’m talking if the super bowl stadium was a lighthouse,” his hands wave and his eyes are big, “and supernaturals were row boats in the fog.”

“Poetic,” Peter chimes over the edge of his tea. 

“Fuck off,” Stiles grumbles at Peter and takes a deep breath. “It was like, anyone who wasn’t anchored to something else was wandering into town. Omega shifters at first. Then wendigos. A kelpie. A gargoyle.” 

“Supernaturals without a strong pack structure - people who were isolated,” Chris tries to clarify as he leans back into his booth seat and absently shifts his hand over to Peter’s leg under the table. Thumb scraping denim. 

“Yeah, loners, whatever. Then it got worse, it was little packs, and wood witches and a faerie.” Stiles chews his lip then winces as he reopens the split, his hand coming up to rub the blood off his chin. He just smears it a rusty color but keeps talking. “We felt it then too, like a pulse.” 

“You felt what?” Peter asks and his eyes are sharp. 

“Don’t know. But it was calling supernaturals in, it felt -- safe,” Stiles trails a bit and his brows dip in before his gaze whips up and narrows. “That’s what people were saying, that it felt safe. Like they’d be safe if they --” Stiles shoulders shrug again and his fingers start fiddling with the plastic cup lid he’d left on the table. Peeling the tabs off first and then starting to shred the edge of it. 

“So Beacon Hills was infested,” Chris prompts quietly, setting his empty coffee on the table so it clicks just loudly enough to catch Stiles’ frenetic attention again. “And something killed your father.”

“No,” Stiles jumps in quickly and his face has smoothed out. It’s worse than looking at his anger. The blankness is unsettling. “No, I know who killed my dad. They’re dead. It wasn’t supernatural. Just a plain ‘ole human.” 

Chris waits, and Peter shifts, mouth opening like he wants to say something. He quiets when Chris clamps his fingers into his thigh, a quick pulse to reel him in. 

“I guess as much as you’re a plain ‘ole anything,” Stiles says after they’ve been staring at him a moment. He looks at Chris like he’s stripped him down to his soul. Dark eyes so empty that Chris wants to reach out and push his flopping hair back just to-- do something. 

“So, hunters,” Peter clarifies with as much disdain for the word as they all probably agree it deserves. “I suppose if a hoard of supernaturals with tenuous control following a -” Peter waves a hand to signify whatever pulse Stiles had been trying to explain. 

“Sort of,” Stiles has the last of the lid shredded under his hands and he pushes it around into piles between his palms. “After the supernaturals started strolling into town. The number of mysterious deaths and hunting accidents by unknown perpetrators and body parts found in the woods…” Stiles lifts a hand and points a finger upward. “Hit the roof.” 

“Hunters tend to do that,” Peter drawls pointedly and raises a brow. 

“Sure, but how convenient is it that all these easy targets show up in the same place at the same time, and how convenient is it that this big hunting operation rooted itself in Beacon Hills a few weeks before that, and how convenient-” Stiles pauses for a breath and Peter raises a hand to shush him. 

“You think these hunters were the ones calling the supernaturals in,” Peter cuts to the point and Chris takes in a heavy breath. 

“When the signal got stronger it was calling more than just feral wolves,” Stiles nods a bit, to himself, and rubs under his lip again. “It’s almost reaching state lines now, and it’s growing, Beacon Hills would be weird death capital of the world if they hadn’t… My dad’s not stupid.” 

“So hunters killed your father and you killed the hunters, that doesn’t explain what you’re doing here,” Peter states it like none of those details were as life altering as they were. 

“We wanted to get away,” Chris inserts gently, frowning at Peter because he knows that there’s empathy somewhere in the damn man. “Can’t blame him for wanting the same.”

“I wasn’t just-- I’m not sucking dick up the West Coast just because I like it,” Stiles rolls his eyes and his mouth twitches flat with exasperation. “I mean I do, and it’s - it’s not the point. There’s more hunters. And more hunters. And then more hunters. Killing a few fuckers doesn’t stop anyone from sending more.” 

“Upstream thinking,” Peter chips in and his mouth is forming into a grin that Chris doesn’t like at all. “You want to know who’s been sending them.” 

Stiles nods a little and shoves the last of his sandwich into his mouth. He chews twice before he speaks through it, “I want to fucken’ destroy who’s sending them.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The boys get food and Stiles gives them the low down on what's been up in Beacon. Which is... a lot of death. Hunters and killing things and yep. Let me know if I need to tag or warn for anything!!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!!!!!!!! Update next week (ish)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey everyone sorry for the wait. I had an injury that kept me from writing and made this story a real stranger but I'm back now!

“I think we should cancel the job,” Chris says when they’re all back in the SUV. It’s grey out and a little chilly but the sun is up somewhere behind the tall trees that line the highway. The light flickers in on them between evergreen branches and Peter’s moved the visor over to cover his side window. 

Peter shuffles in his seat, back straightening as he reaches forward and pops his sunglasses out of the holder set above the windshield so he can get them on his nose. “We don’t cancel jobs.” 

“What’s the job?” Stiles pipes from the back with his phone flinging in cartwheels between his fingers. 

“We can’t take him.” Chris hikes a thumb behind his shoulder and slumps down enough his jacket wrinkles. The leather side-hugging seats are a comfort to his back - he thought he’d been sore _before_ they stopped for the night. Maybe his body’s gotten too used to sleeping in the car. 

“Take me where?” There’s a rustle, the seat belt slithering out further from the bracket as Stiles tries to lean up on the console. 

“We could leave him in the car?” Peter suggests with a glance over and a curl of his lip that makes Chris snort. The wolf was touchy about having his driving space invaded. 

“Leave me in the car, _where_?” 

“You think he’d stay in the car?” Chris asks. He doesn’t particularly like how Stiles has strained forward either so he shifts over to lean against the door. This kid makes him feel like he needed breathing space. 

“I could stay in the car,” Stiles sounds indignant now. 

Peter huffs which is an answer and adjusts his sunglasses, they’re expensive, and they live in the car. Chris doesn’t understand how he has so many pairs, or how he squirrels them away without scratching them. They come out of pockets and bags, out of the trunk space. 

“I think we should head straight for Seattle,” Chris doesn’t think he’s really being listened to. “We could put him up and then double back.” 

They don’t. 

Half an hour later and Chris feels like he’s got a bruise blooming on his temple from where he’s been smacked against the window with the jostling of the car; his fault for dozing.The pot holes down these little town roads were usually rough but the dips and dives in the uneven dirt path they’d taken out to the coast was something else entirely. He’s a little car sick from being shaken up by the time they’re pulling in to a one pump gas station; and maybe that’s his fault too for letting Peter drive. 

Peter glances over with a bit of a squint and Chris grunts at him, hand rubbing over his forehead with a grim look that usually dissuades the wolf from trying to pick up a conversation. 

Though that doesn’t mean it stays quiet much longer than it takes to park the car out front of the town’s diner. Stiles jars awake with a startle of sound and his hand whips to grip the side of the door like he’s falling before he blinks owlishly at Chris in the rear view mirror. “I have to piss,” he says with a thick tongue and fingers that struggle against his seat belt buckle. 

Chris looks away because Stiles looks too young with his hair rucked up and his limbs uncoordinated as he escapes into the sea side air. 

“Go on, we’ll meet you inside. Get a booth.” Peter directs even though Stiles is already making his way across the lot towards a front entrance shadowed by a sign that advertises this place belongs to someone named Mary. The paint under the letters is too dark in places, like an old logo used to live there. A failed chain store maybe, it’s hard to tell. 

They can hear the ocean even from here, or maybe his ears are just rushing from the nausea. Either way, it beats the highway noise. “I’m driving to Seattle,” Chris tells Peter as the wolf comes around the hood humming tunelessly. 

“Sensitive,” Peter teases, like he always does when Chris’s human failings get the better of him. “Come, there’s time to get you some water,” his tone smooths as he puts a too hot hand on Chris’s nape. 

The side of the car feels a lot more appealing than moving as his stomach swoops, his hand pressed against it for balance, leaving a humid print behind when he manages to straighten up and nod a little. Peter’s hand skims over his shoulder until the weight of his arm drops across them and they go inside like that. 

“Restroom is for customers only,” a woman says, like she’s repeating herself, with a menu in one hand and the other poised on her hip. This far from the highway that seems like a strange gate to keep but Chris casts a look over Stiles and sees the slightly disheveled youth she must. 

Stiles has his ankles crossed and his hands are moving as fast as his mouth. “I get that, and I told you I’ll buy something. I just -” he makes a mildly pathetic grunt and then turns when he hears the door close behind him to wave at Peter. “We’re together.” 

There’s a pause that’s long enough to hear someone asking for a coffee refill in a seat a few feet to the left of the divider that blocks the front from the seating. Peter’s got a mean little smirk on as he looks Stiles over; he’s wiggling now. 

“We’re together,” Chris agrees because Peter is in a strange stare down with Stiles and he just wants to sit back down and get some water. “A booth, please.” 

A menu flaps air at him as the woman sucks in a breath and starts to apologize before she’s directing them right side of the restaurant and allowing Stiles to dart towards the bathrooms at the back of the restaurant. 

Chris doesn’t pay a lot of attention to what she’s saying, but he thanks her for the seat when she shows them to a booth next to the window. They can see the SUV from here. They can see just about every car in the lot actually. 

“Alright, I’m Tess and I’ll be taking care of you today. Can I get you drinks to start?” She asks, miracled into the picture of hospitality, a pen and paper pulled out of her apron pocket and the menus sorted neatly down onto the red table top; it’s faded with chips at the edge where it meets the metal frame that dates the building. Her red lipstick and plaid dress fit in with the broken neon sign on the wall and the pattern of the floors. 

“Water for him, I’ll have an orange juice and a rootbeer for,” Peter’s voice is smooth and he gestures to the empty seat across from them. 

She nods, clicking her tongue and tapping the top of the laminated menu to indicate where the specials are. “Little early for lunch but if you’d like it I’ll let you have the special.” There’s something that makes Chris smile a little about the way she winks at Peter like she would rather pinch his cheek than flirt with him. 

“And a coffee,” Chris adds when she’s turned on the toe of her runner. He wants a hot mug between his hands to soothe his joints and the caffeine wouldn't hurt with the way his head feels.

Tess lifts her pen and flick it at him in what he assumes is acknowledgment before she’s off to another table to check on the woman dangling a coffee cup from one finger and reading out of a file folder. 

The booth they’ve slid into isn’t large and Peter makes the space smaller by pressing their thighs and shoulders together. There’s at least three inches to spare on the other side of him but the wolf is content to cram in like he’s playing at sardines. 

“He makes you nervous too,” Chris says after he takes a short visual sweep of the place and doesn’t see Stiles coming back yet. 

Peter hums, it’s flippant but his eyes are sharp when he flicks them between Chris and the back of the restaurant. “There’s something off about him,” there’s a pause, a little puff of breath and then a sarcastic hand gesture that goes with, “beyond the tragic death of his father and his apparent taste for revenge.” 

As if that wasn’t relatable. Chris wrinkles a look of disapproval over and nudges his shoulder into Peter sharp enough to make him sway. “How do you know-” 

“Later,” Peter interrupts as he perks up towards the back wall. 

Between here and there is a dining room full of tables, a serving podium and the hallway to the kitchen, but Stiles navigates it with his eyes glued to his phone. Side stepping table legs and other patrons with a fluidity that doesn’t equate to the scraps of memory Chris has of him. 

Or maybe it’s just a fluke. Stiles trips into their booth, jarring his hip on the edge of the table with a colorful stream of curses and a very expressive frowny face. “Are we getting food - did you order drinks. I want a root-” 

“I know, it’s coming,” Peter butts in smoothly, his posture settling back, languid and easy against the worn vinyl cushion of the booth. 

There’s a look between them that Chris just can’t keep up with so he turns his head to examine the cars out in the parking lot instead. The glass window cool enough to fog when he exhales too close to it. 

“Thanks,” Stiles says and it doesn’t matter if he’s not looking, the smile that’s probably crooked and soft is in his voice. 

“So, apparently we’re just supposed to head NorthWest from the mainroad and follow the beach up to the rocks.” Chris says after the pause has drifted to uncomfortably long because Peter is a bastard who won’t stop staring across the table like he’s going to develop telepathy. 

“What’s the job?” Stiles asks after he sucks in a breath that expands his whole body. His hands come up and splay on the table, phone set between them and spinning with little flicks between his right thumb and left index. “Are you hunting something? Dealing something?” 

“We do both,” Peter shrugs and his gaze breaks off of Stiles to drift around the diner. “Mostly the former, Chris gets fussy when I spend too much time with cursed artifacts.” 

“You get your ass haunted I’m leaving.” And that’s the truth. Chris looks over and pulls his phone out of his pocket to look at the map he’s got committed to memory. 

There’s a jostle and Peter’s rolling his eyes before familiar fingers grip Chris’s thigh and he feels himself ease a little at the weight of it. 

“So - what’s on the beach by the rocks?” Stiles asks, chewing on his lip and leaning over the table enough that his chest bumps into the edge. 

Chris doesn’t think they should tell him and he jars his elbow over into Peter’s side when he hears the wolf pull in a speaking breath. “Nothing you need to worry about.” 

“Look, this is good ol'fashioned curiosity,” Stiles snipes back across the table at them, a finger raised and everything. Chris can see it bobbing around above the line of sight his phone takes up. “I just want to know what’s out there.” 

And _that_ , that’s hard to argue with. Ignorance was dangerous and even if he wasn’t about to hand the kid a list of every supernatural creature on earth it suddenly felt irresponsible not to tell him _something_. “Either a siren that’s gone really bad or a grindylow.” Chris dips his phone a little to look over at Stiles who gapes back at him. 

“A grindylow - like _ah zee grindylowz”_ Stiles says in what has to be the worst french accent Chris has ever heard. 

“Yes, those. Ten points to -” Peter squints and the conversation devolves into arguing about Hogwarts Houses. Chris takes his coffee from the waitress with pure gratitude and a smile that's as thin as his patience. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if this chapter feels super disjointed I'm sorry. It sat unfinished for literal months while I was recovering my ability to read. It's been a lot of squinting and editing trying to get back into the feel of writing something from Chris's POV. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!! I'd love to hear what you guys think!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note updated tags! 
> 
> If ya'll still reading, thank you! 
> 
> See end notes for chapter details and TWs.

When Chris is done with his coffee and half the glass of water, Stiles and Peter have declared themselves Slytherins before their attention shifts his way. 

“Hufflepuff,” Stiles says after a long pause of unnerving staring. He doesn’t blink; eyes too bright in this lighting. Stiles’ mouth falls open in a smile when Peter bursts into a belly laugh that startles Chris enough to jolt beside him. 

A hot hand finds his knee again, maybe to be reassuring, but Peter doesn’t elaborate, just nods. It doesn’t seem like they’re talking about silly fictional magic anymore. Feels more like they’re passing a real judgment and Chris isn’t sure if it’s one he likes. 

Hell, he’s not sure it’s one he even understands. 

“Order lunch, we’ll be back in an hour,” Chris decides as he sets his mug down and the ceramic clanks against the table top. His elbow comes up to get Peter out of the booth. 

Stiles’ hand shoots out towards them, he makes a wet noise behind the tall glass he has upside down against his mouth to chase the last puddle of root beer at the bottom curve. “No way.” The stubborn set to his mouth makes his jaw flex like he’s grinding his teeth. “I’m coming.”

Peter shifts, at first Chris thinks he’s going to reach out but instead he just puts a hand on the table and uses it as leverage to slide himself out of the booth. “You clearly think this is going to be much more interesting that it will be,” he says with a dry smirk. 

“I don’t care-” Stiles argues while he’s pushing himself to the end of his seat to stand up; he’s met with Peter’s palm on his chest, it rocks him back to sitting. 

Chris moves out of the booth. His back cracks when he stands with a hand to his lower spine. “Jesus,” he complains with a look at Peter and then down at the table where Stiles has put all of their cups together at the end. “You could use a few good meals, anyway.” 

“Don’t leave me here.” 

The quiet words hit something a little guilty in Chris’s gut and Peter’s shoulders have drooped. 

_ Figures _ . 

“Fine.” Chris snaps as he turns away, before he can make too much of the fact that Stiles is still looking up at Peter or that Peter’s hand has come up and frozen just a few inches from Stiles’ cheek. 

They pay their small bill with cash and Chris can’t muster much of a smile to meet the red lipped one they get from their waitress. Odds are they’ll be back for lunch anyway, he can try for polite again later. 

It’s not a long drive out to the beach, but Chris still climbs behind the wheel to avoid any more stomach churning. Peter opens his window and hangs his arm out into the cool sunshine that’s already starting to cloud over with wispy stripes.    
  
“So,” Stiles says, leaned into his window so much he might leave a nose print on it if they hit a particularly deep rut in the unpaved road. 

“No questions,” Chris says. Gruff and frowning as he navigates the empty road out to the beach. The town clearly wised up enough not to risk their stretch of ocean. 

There’s a grunt of displeasure from behind him but at least Stiles listens. It’s blessedly quiet until they’ve parked in the tiny parking lot that overlooks the start of a rocky beach. 

The water is calm, a gentle slosh of the waves on the minimal sand passed the rockline. It reminds Chris of a postcard. “Will you stay in the car?”   
  
“Nope.”   
  
Chris nods, slow and resigned before he climbs out of the vehicle and walks around back to grab a bag out of the trunk space. Beside him, Peter unloads a cooler, it’s small, scratched from years of fishing trips.    
  
“Do you know where my - ah,” Peter says as he rummages his hand into a bag for his pair of swim shorts. A pair of french things that are cut halfway up his thigh. He uses them to whip Chris’s arm before he strips down and shimmies them on. His grin is too big to be ignorant of Stiles’ stuttering breath a few feet over, or the way his heels kick up loose stones on the lot when he pivots around fast to be facing the water.    


“Disturber,” Chris accuses but he allows himself to be pulled in for their traditional pre-hunt kiss. Peter’s cheek brushes his own, his lips drag against the corner of his mouth, his waist is warm where Chris squeezes it. 

Hunting was a risky profession surrounded by a family, a clan, in a team. Like this, just the two of them… Well, Peter fueled life by taunting death and Chris was too tired to do anything but follow him. 

“You carry the chum,” Chris directs with a tap of his knuckle against the cooler. He grabs for his case, and loads a flare to his left hip and pistol to his right. Checking them over twice, fingers sliding over metal with the same meticulous care he’d learned as a kid. “Try not to drown.”    


There’s an inquisitive noise from Stiles, he’s wandered back, big eyed and staring between the two of them before his face turns back to the water and his brows knit. It’s hard to tell what he wants to say but Peter seems to have some idea because he’s chuckling as he closes the trunk and starts walking. 

“Stay away from the water,” Chris says as he starts after Peter. His black duffel hooked on his elbow as they trek down the rock line to an outcrop that’s several yards off. Stiles is clumsier following them, though he leaps between rocks with startling grace just often enough that Chris can’t decide if he’s really clumsy or just inattentive. 

The salt in the air is sharp, the smell of dead and drying crustacean a rank musk carried up by the wind, and overtoning both is the smell of rotting flesh. Distinct enough after so many years. Peter’s got his head tipped up, nose in the air, eyes squinting at the waterline. 

It was quiet. Chris could hear the absence of gulls louder than if one had landed on his shoulder and croaked right in his ear. Calm like this, quiet like this, it meant trouble. Always.    
  
“I mean it kid, you stay away from the water.” Chris twists to give the boy a stern look. Mouth thinning further as Stiles just raises his palms up and nods like he’d never dare do something so stupid. 

Stiles balances on a large rock, and hunkers down to squat. “You got it, just gonna… look for hermit crabs.” He makes a show of picking up a rock and looking underneath it. 

The quiet becomes more unsettling the closer to the large rock shelf they get, the water lapping up the sides of it, undisturbed. Peter’s quick and catlike as he moves down the shore and crouches himself on top of the large rock. He’s sniffing at something and peering over the edge before he’s setting the cooler down beside him and cracking it open. The contents are bagged, twice, and in a sealed container. He takes a moment to get the viscera out and into his hand. 

“I need a better angle,” Chris murmurs, voice soft for Peter’s extended hearing as he nears up on the left. Not quite on the crop but within a few feet of it, he can see the water they’re baiting. He puts the bag down carefully and tosses Peter a thumbs up as he stabilizes his stance. When he peeks back over, Stiles has come several feet closer undetected. Chris scowls at him, and Stiles blinks back guileless. 

The water is visibly stained when Peter drops his handfuls of chum down below himself. He waits, leans to stir it with his hand, dangling his fingers like a living fishing line. 

It didn’t matter how thoroughly they talked through a plan, or how capable Peter was of ripping nearly anything living to shreds, Chris felt his pulse in his throat and the cold chill of focus down his spine. Coiled to grab for a knife or gun, depending what takes the bait. 

It took a few moments, and more of Peter’s forearm, before a pale two toned hand came out of the water. A deep blue wrist and a white palm. Chris nods a bit, Peter purrs. The delicate webbed fingers stroke up Peter’s inner elbow and wrap gently around his bicep as a face the color of dead coral comes out of the water. She might be beautiful, if the bloodlust wasn’t so clear in her fanged smile. 

“Swim?” She says in an accent that says she’s far from her home ocean. There’s pieces of their offered flesh stuck to her chin. 

They knew, if it was a siren, that this next step would happen fast. Peter goes down, half dragged, half diving into the water. Stiles sucks in a yelping breath behind him but Chris doesn’t spare him any reassurance as he moves a few stones closer and readies his gun. 

His boot crunches over a small pile of bones. 

It’s three careful breaths before the thrashing starts, the water bubbling and writhing with mismatched pieces of limbs and fresh blood. Wolf and siren jolt out of the water and against the rocks, Peter’s skull smacking into the stone as he hauls the siren out with him and against his chest. 

She’s got fangs snapping at his throat, and he’s got claws in her ribs. They’re both slicked with blood where the tide doesn’t reach their bleeding wounds. Her’s moves slower, sludgy and cold from the gouges in her cheek.    
  
“Chris,” Peter shouts, teeth bared as he fights off being dragged back into the water, his hand wrapped around a rock and his legs twined around the siren. Her thin fingers are trying to pull him with her as she thrashes to unbeach them.    


There’s a clear opening, she’s lifted her head back to try to pull away from the clawed hand wrapping around her neck. Chris squeezes the trigger and shatters skull. 

Stiles screams.

The sound is sharp, frightened and coming from somewhere farther away than he is. Chris doesn’t flinch, he’s spent his life learning to be immovable with a gun in his hand, but he does look over when he’s lowered it. 

“You alright,” Chris asks of Peter as he holsters, but his eyes are fixated on where Stiles has gone to his knees, pale and wheezing. 

“Dandy,” Peter chirps, “this is disgusting.” 

There’s siren dissolving into the ocean against the wolf’s legs. A slimy mass that turns into foam where it breaks on the waves. It’s lapping further up Peter’s chest as he shoves away the remaining torso into the water and pushes himself up higher onto the rock. There’s blood on his face. A fragment of something white and slick protrudes from his temple. Chris’s lip twitches a bit but he leaves his partner to deal with himself as he walks back to Stiles. 

“Kid,” he says, standing above him and grimacing a little. Stiles doesn’t respond, frozen staring at his own hands. “Stiles,” Chris tries again as he crouches down beside him. 

There’s nothing but rattling breaths that put a phantom weight on his own chest. 

It’s been a long time since he’s comforted anyone that fit against his chest the way Stiles does when he reaches out and drags the kid forward. Hides him against the bulk of his body with one hand on his nape while the other smooths over his back. “Hey now.” 

There’s a whimpering vibration against Chris’s shoulder where Stiles tucks his face into it. His skinny hands clutch at shirt front and twist the fabric out of shape around his fists. “Sorry,” Stiles’ voice stutters like he’s caught a sudden chill. He’s trembling all over, but the worst of the wheeze settles by the time Peter’s coming over. Clean and dripping with seawater. 

“This is still happening, hm sweetheart?” Peter hums as he comes over, pushing water out of his hair. He takes a seat on the rocks and puts his arm around Stiles from the other side. The boy is forcibly tipped over into him; hiccuping on a sobbing swallow. “Breathe.” 

It’s a strange shift, and Chris finds himself useless and looking on as Stiles detangles his hands from him and wraps them around his own knees instead. He’s got a ghostly pale to his face as he starts to breathe purposefully. Big expansions of his chest that rock his fragile frame. Lacking anything to do, Chris twists and sits down too. 

“I should’ve,” Stiles starts quiet and rough, swallowing spit, “stayed in the car.” He cracks a grin that looks haphazard and pitiful, but he bumps his fist into Chris’s thigh, leaving it pressed there. 

It should probably feel weirder to reach over and take a hand that isn’t Peter’s, or at the very least more paternal than it does. It’s just a cool set of fingers wrapped in his own. Stiles squeezes back. 

They all stare out at the ocean. In the distance there’s a formation of seagulls calling their way across the sky. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: A monster gets shot in the face and Stiles has a panic attack - graphic blood, not as graphic panic. 
> 
> Tell me what ya'll think!!! Would love to hear from you! Anyone else think Chris is a hufflepuff?"


End file.
